"The way you look at me is kinda like a little sister."

-Katy Perry

I rolled out of bed late Saturday morning to see a note on my bedside table.

Alex,
I have to work today. Your brother will drive you to guitar.
Love,
Mom

Great. It sucks that my mom has to go to work on a Saturday, but it's not like I don't suffer. Whenever mom has to work on a weekend or goes out of town on a business trip, my douchey older brother seems to think he's "in charge". Sure, he'll be a Junior once school starts back up again, and I just graduated middle school, but he's really not that much older than me. I got held back in kindergarten (something that Ryan thinks is hilarious), so I'm really only a year younger than him. Not to mention I have a September birthday, so I'll be sixteen pretty soon.

Whatever. I walked over to my closet and threw on a T-shirt and some old jeans. My brother Ryan was waiting in the driveway in his old beat up car that he got for his birthday last year. As soon as he saw me step outside, he started the car and began to drive away. God, he was so immature. I ran after the car. As soon as I caught up, he stopped.

I opened the door and got in the front seat. "Very funny, douche bag!" I said, rolling my eyes.

"I know, it doesn't seem fair, does it?" Ryan laughed, "I got the looks and the sense of humor."

"Shut up!" I shoved him, "Just drive the damn car . . . if you can call it a car. The sooner we pick up Justin the sooner I can get to practice and the sooner I can get out of this dump and away from you." I said, half-joking. I really did love Ryan. He was like my best friend, but he was my brother, so we had to mess with each other a little.

Pretty soon, we pulled up at Justin's house. Justin Bieber was my best friend, and Ryan's, too. Like Ryan, he would be a junior when school started again. We had been taking guitar lessons together ever since I was eight. While all the other second graders had been taking dance classes and learning how to do spinney ballet thingies, I was becoming a rockstar-in-training.

"Yo, what's up Ryan?" Justin said jumping in the beat up car.

"Hey Justin?" Ryan asked, with a smirk on his face that only I noticed.

"What, dude?"

"Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" I snickered at Ryan's question, which was yet another way of making fun of Justin's needy, bitchy girlfriend Diane.

"No way, man! I don't want an ugly ass girlfriend!"

"Too late." I snickered.

"Uh, guys, you do know that I broke up with Diane, right?"

"Really?" I asked, turning around enthusiastically. "Why? Can I guess?"

"Oo, I want to guess too!" Ryan joined in.

"Guys—"

"Did you finally notice her shocking resemblance to Caitlin's horse?"

"Did you catch her cheating on you with her cat?"

"Did you catch her cheating on you with her other cat?"

"Did you find out that she watches you sleep?"

"Guys—"

"Is she actually a man?"

"Is she a hermaphrodite?"

"Is she part cat?"

"Guys—"

"Did her cats break into your house and attempt to kill you?"

"Does she keep locks of your hair in a jar under her bed?"

"Guys!" Justin yelled, "Shut up. I just thought she was a little too clingy."

"So . . . basically you dumped her because she was a clingy bitch?" I smirked, "Wow, you catch on fast."

"Guys, cut it out! She's a sweet girl!"

Ryan laughed, "If she's such a sweet girl, why don't you go back over to her house and have sex in her pool?"

Justin rolled his eyes, "Just because I don't hate her doesn't mean I have to go out with her. I like Alex, but I don't want to bang her."

If there was anything that could ruin my mood after hearing the news that Justin had dumped Diane, it was that sentence right there.

I wonder if Justin will ever know how I feel about him.

I am completely, totally, hopelessly, pathetically, head-over-heels in love with Justin. I'd never in a million years tell him.

We arrived at guitar lessons. I couldn't stop thinking about Justin and Diane. You know how you always hate that girl who your crush is going out with? But then they break up, and even though you've been praying for them to do so for months, you feel even worse than before, because you know you'd never be with him anyway, and now you have no one to blame for the fact that you aren't with him. Okay, you might not know that feeling, but I do. And that's how I felt.

I wonder if Justin will ever return my feelings.

Of course he won't. Why should he? Guys never pay any attention to me. I'm nothing special. I'm not girly, or preppy, or sexy. I'm just one of the boys. Sure, I know Justin loves me, but in a sisterly way. Not the way I love him. I'm just a friend. I've never given a guy any reason to think of me as more than a friend. You know how on cheesy sitcoms where a boy and a girl start out as friend, but then the boy starts falling in love with the girl 'cuz she's just so darn sexy? Yeah, that would never happen in my life. I'm not beautiful or sexy or even pretty. I'm just a girl with braces in a baseball cap and old jeans. No guy would fall in love with me, especially not Justin.

I wonder if he knows I don't want to be this way.

I want to be like other girls. The girly girls. Like my best friend, Delilah, or Caitlin, my friend Christian's sister. I want to feel pretty. I want to obsess over getting my nails dirty. I want to wake up every morning and get my face all made up before leaving my room.

But I'm not like that. I'm good at sports. Like, really good. Especially baseball. I've never been big on hockey though. I know what you're thinking, isn't it a crime to live in Canada and not be into hockey? Well, I guess not, otherwise I would be behind bars. In the summer, Justin, Ryan, Christian, my friend Chaz, and I, along with a few other guys that are friends with Ryan, play baseball after guitar lessons. I almost always get picked first.

I was on Justin's team this time. We won.

"Great job man!" Justin said, high fiving me.

I wonder if he knows how much I hate to be called "man". I don't mind being called "dude". People call Lilah dude. I call Lilah dude. Lilah calls me dude. Girls can be called dude. But girls—at least the girls who are girly—aren't called "man".

I was in a bad mood when I got home. Why did Justin have to dump Diane? Why couldn't he just stay together with her, so I could keep fantasizing about their dramatic breakup scene where he dumps her for me and we ride off into the sunset on Caitlin's horse, Sting?

I threw my bag across the room. It knocked over several pictures on my bedside table.

"Shit!" I whispered. I rushed over to pick them off the floor. Luckily, none of the frames were broken. There were three pictures on my bedside table, but only two of them had fallen. One of the photos on the floor was one that had been taken at a professional photographer's when I was seven. I was standing in front of a gray backdrop wearing a little denim dress, grinning at the camera and holding a baseball bat. The second one had been taken at Lilah's ninth birthday party. She had only invited three people, because that was her mom's condition on letting it be a sleepover-slash-pool party. We were all holding hands and jumpinginto the pool. On the far right was Caitlin, in a red and blue bathing suit, and next to her was me, in the pink bathing suit my mom had insisted on buying for me. I was holding hands with Lilah, who was wearing a light blue bathing suit. On the far left was Cindy, our old best friend who moved to Vermont in fourth grade. She was the only girl in the picture wearing a one-piece bathing suit, and she looked absolutely terrified. Cindy had always been a little afraid of water. She was the shortest girl in our grade, something that we didn't dare tease her about, because as tiny as she was, the girl could sure put up a fight. I laughed, remembering the time Fletcher Daniels, a kid in our grade, had called her a midget, and she kicked him in the balls. Sure she got sent home, but he never picked on her again. Instead, he resorted to making fun of me and Lilah, but mostly me.

I put the pictures back on the table, next to the third one that hadn't been knocked down. It was a photo of me and Justin with our arms around eachother. It had been taken in sixth grade, right after I had gotten my braces. I wouldn't open my mouth at all, because I didn't want anyone to see them. Justin kept trying to make me laugh, and when I finally did, he told me that the braces made me look really pretty. I hugged him and he threw his arm around me and we both smiled for my mom, who had the camera.

I went to bed early that night. I would be up late anyway, crying myself to sleep.

Okay, so here's my new story! I hope y'all liked this chapter!

Please Review! I won't update till you do!